


that stubbornness will be the death of you

by inkwellhell (georgewashingmachine)



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, F/M, Gen, Non-Canonical Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Build, and i just really love queliot so, chapter 1 is just like. buildup, character study?? kind of?, formatting text is hard, im sorry this is really rushed, in depth rhinemann ultra scene, lots of breaks and timeskips, queliot is subtle but. its there, quentin centric, quentin is stubborn and dumb as usual, tagged as queliot bc the end of the rhinemann scene was kinda romantic, takes place during season 2, this is bad and i have no confidence in my writing haha, with el comforting q and all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-24 05:27:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13206948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/georgewashingmachine/pseuds/inkwellhell
Summary: "He knows something bad is going to happen. They all do, he thinks. Or maybe they don’t and he’s just hoping the group knows so he can feel a little better about it. Again, he really doesn’t care to work out the specifics. He just knows something bad will happen in the future and it definitely involves him."—aka quentin is stubborn as fuck with niffin!alice but this time it’s more so than usual





	1. unadulterated dread

Quentin is first aware of the overwhelming feeling of dread when the group gets their initials branded into their backs, followed by trapping Cacodemons in said initials. He can’t really tell if he’s had this feeling the whole time and he was just never aware of it, or if it’s just started now, but he knows it’s there in that moment and he really doesn’t care to figure out when it began.

 

He knows something bad is going to happen. They all do, he thinks. Or maybe they don’t and he’s just hoping the group knows so he can feel a little better about it. Again, he really doesn’t care to work out the specifics. He just knows something bad will happen in the future and it definitely involves him.

 

But, being the person he is, Quentin brushes the feeling aside for another time for future Quentin to deal with because currently, he’s too busy focusing on the horrific burning sensation that comes with trapping a Cacodemon in your back to think about anything else.

 

* * *

 

“The spell that won World War II is called the Rhinemann Ultra?” Eliot frowns in disbelief. “Sounds like a not-so-great beer.”

 

Upon the mention of the spell’s name, Quentin feels something resurface. “Fine, it’s a beer, but it’s a beer we can use to kill The Beast.” He replies, ignoring how the feeling grows when he mentions The Beast. The feeling, he realizes suddenly, is the overwhelming dread.

 

He doesn’t pay much attention to the rest of the conversation.

 

Until Eliot goes crazy and he doesn’t have time to focus on what he was feeling at the moment, and before he knows it he’s gone insane himself and the only thing on his mind is killing Eliot, the feeling forgotten and pushed to the back of his mind.

 

* * *

 

 

The feeling resurfaces once more when Margo and Penny use their Cacodemons. The feeling isn’t as strong as it was before, perhaps because he’s under the influence of a curse, but it’s still there, like it was reminding him of that.  
  
_Believe me,_ he thinks, _I know you’re still here_. The thought is faint, but he’s still aware he’s thinking it even if he’s currently talking about how easily Margo could have died, but _no_ , Penny had to shoot her in the ass and not the neck.

 

* * *

 

 

Quentin was starting to learn what triggered the overwhelming feeling of dread™.

 

Firstly, and most obviously, cacodemons. The feeling was there when the group got them and it was there when they were used. Alice had gotten rid of hers, leaving Quentin the only one to still have it. The event that caused him so much anxiety had to do with the use of his cacodemon, then.

 

Secondly, The Beast. He figured, with the realization that the event had to do with the weapon trapped beneath his skin, that he would use said demon when they faced The Beast.

  
Speaking of facing The Beast, the Rhinemann Ultra was the third trigger. It was easy to see, considering all three of the triggers were connected. But there was something else missing.

  
Alice.

  
Alice would be the one to cast the Rhinemann Ultra.

 

 _She_ would cast the Rhinemann Ultra, undoubtedly one of the most powerful spells in existence, if not _the_ most powerful spell in existence.

 

Alice.

 

Something bad was going to happen to Alice when she cast that spell.

 

* * *

 

It was then that the feeling started to make him sick.

 

This was the moment. It was all there – Alice, The Beast, and an injured Quentin who was completely useless.

 

He didn’t want to watch, but at the same time, he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. He thinks it added to how sick he felt.

 

“Is that all you got?” Alice taunted. “You’re not even a real magician, are you, Martin? You’re just a scared little boy.” She sneered, “You wouldn’t last an hour at Brakebills.”

 

They were both panting hard.

 

Martin cast a fireball. Alice easily dodged it.

 

Angered by the attack, Alice growls deeply and screams as she flings Martin back. He lands on the surface of a rock, falling to the dirt below. He yelps in pain upon the impact.

 

“Jesus,” Eliot commented, he and Margo watching the encounter with wide eyes. “Alice is going full ‘Harry Potter’ part seven/eight over there.”

 

“Oh, God.” Margo responds, “I hope we’re winning.”

 

Alice goes to start the spell, but there’s a burning sensation on her wrist too strong to ignore. “Damn it!” She mutters, ripping the white-hot bracelet from her wrist and flinging it toward where Quentin lay, clutching his shoulder and watching Alice with bated breath, anxiety tearing him apart for what he knew was going to come.

 

Without the burning on her wrist, she starts casting once again.

 

“Alice, what are you doing?” Quentin calls to her, as panicked as he can sound in his condition.

 

Alice doesn’t answer, her gaze fixated on Martin, only Martin, and nothing but Martin. Martin. Martin. Martin.

 

“No! Alice, don’t. Stop, it’ll—”

 

From their cover, Eliot and Margo speak, but Quentin can’t hear them. Can’t hear them, _refuses_ to hear them. He doesn’t focus on anyone but Alice.

 

“Alice, stop!”  
  
“It’s okay,” Alice assures him, as if only now hearing Quentin’s voice. Her head glitches out. “I’ve got this, Quentin.”  


The spell grows louder. Alice keeps glitching.

 

“Alice, no!”

 

Alice’s expression shifts from rage to pure fear.

 

Alice whimpers as the Rhinemann Ultra bursts into blue flames, enveloping her hands. The flames spread, quickly covering every inch of her body, and her whimpers turned into shrieks. Quentin watches her, paralyzed with fear, fucking _horrified_ by what he was seeing. The dread he had been feeling since they got their Cacodemons had been focused on this moment. And he couldn’t do fucking _anything_ about it. He was _useless._ Completely and utterly _fucking useless._ Lying there with a gash on his shoulder and totally helpless, unable to do anything but watch as Alice was consumed by the spell.

 

“ALICE!”

 

Her screams are unbearable to listen to. Her whole body is covered by blue flames, and blue light protrudes from her eyes and mouth.

 

“NO!”  


Alice disappears.

 

Martin stands and walks forward, limping. He laughs maniacally.

 

“Too far.” He murmurs, his tone becoming dark. “Too bad. Let’s finally finish this.”

 

Quentin starts to stand up. He doesn’t get very far before Alice is back. _Alice is back._

 

She touches Martin’s hand, smoke coming off of it where she touched.  
  
“I did it on purpose.” She says.

 

Alice disappears from Martin’s view, reappearing in front of him. Areas of her skin are glowing blue. “Move.” She commands. “Go on. Something you want to say?”

 

“Alice,” says Martin, “We can make a deal. Think of the fun we can have together. You don’t have to—”

 

Alice cuts him off. “But I want to.”

 

She rips him open easily. Moths fly out of the gaping hole Alice had ripped in him, and he drops to the ground, dead. A final blue moth crawls out of his mouth and flies away.

 

“Disappointing,” Alice says, turning around to face Quentin. She turns her palms toward him, a blue hue decorating the skin. A spot on her cheek does the same, and as it does her eye changes to an icy, strikingly blue color like the rest of her. “Your turn.”

 

“Alice!” Margo yells, her and Eliot having come out of hiding. Alice turns to face her, expressionless.

 

“You got her attention, now what?” Eliot asks, undoubtedly unnerved by Alice’s stare.

  
She starts walking towards them.

 

“I’m sorry for all the times I was a total dick to you,” Margo says to her, her voice shaking slightly.

 

“You’re talking like you mean something to me,” Alice responds, her tone flat.

 

“Okay, just…” Eliot trails off, his words catching in his throat as Alice nears.

 

“Alice. Don’t.” Quentin calls, but unsurprisingly, his words do nothing to deter the girl.

 

Alice turns her head, staring at him silently before returning to Margo and Eliot.

 

Quentin was now standing, and he knew he had to do _something_ instead of just standing there doing _nothing_ like a _fucking idiot._ So, he did the only thing he could do: he let out his Cacodemon.

 

“Quentin says go free.”

 

The demon emerges from his back and charges at Alice, who screams. Quentin’s vision goes white upon the impact. When his vision clears, Alice is lying on the ground, unmoving. Quentin attempts to move towards her, and although it’s difficult with his shoulder gash and he’s moaning in pain every time he moves, he doesn’t stop, calling her name with every push toward her body.

 

“Alice. Hey, hey.” He says breathlessly, pulling himself closer. Margo and Eliot hurry to his side.

 

“Q, stop, you’re hurt.”

 

“Alice. Hey!”

 

“Q, you have to stop,” Eliot says softly, wrapping his arms around Quentin, holding him back.

 

“Come on, she might be alive!”

  
  
“Just stop.”

 

“She might be alive.”

 

“You have to stop. Q, you have to stop.”

 

Quentin starts sobbing, trying uselessly to wriggle out of Eliot’s grasp.

 

“You have to stop. You have to stop. You have to stop.”

 

 


	2. forever unrelenting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is where the whole idea for the fic truly starts, with niffin alice and stubborn as fuck quentin and such
> 
> so yeah enjoy this

Quentin reads over the words more times than he can count.

 

_Dear Q,_

_We buried Alice today in the gardens, where she’ll always be close by. We left a box of her things if you ever wake up._

_Please wake up._

_Your benevolent overlord,_

_High King Eliot_

And the words rang in his head just as many times.

 

_Alice is dead._

 

It hits him hard in that moment, the realization that _she was dead_ , the events of the battle playing over and over in his mind.

 

_Alice is dead._

 

No. No. No. She _can’t be_.

 

_Alice is dead._

 

All he can see in his head is her lifeless body lying in the dirt, and all he can hear are his sobs and Alice’s voice and her laugh and her _screams_ and Eliot’s voice telling him to stop, and all he can feel is Eliot’s arms holding him back and _Alice_ , Alice’s lips on his and the way her hand fits into his and _Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice_.

 

He wasn’t sure when he started crying, but as he pulls his attention away from the letter and the box of Alice’s things, the only thing he feels is the hot tears that were falling down his cheeks.

 

* * *

 

Quentin feels the dread even with Alice’s death. It comes up with any mention of Alice – he feels it when he and Penny track down the White Lady, he feels it when he tries to write the email to Alice’s parents, he feels it at Alice’s wake. He even feels it when he sees Alice – no, the Niffin, the _monster_ that had once been Alice. In fact, the feeling is at its strongest, then.

 

“Stop ignoring me! Stop ignoring me, you pussy! Pay attention to me, you miserable, sad sack! What’s wrong with you?”

 

“Stop it!”

 

“Are you ready to let me out of that hairy back of yours?”

 

At that comment, the anxiety, the dread, is so strong it makes his stomach do flips.

 

“’Cause I’m never gonna stop,” Alice goes on, “And sooner or later, one of these dummies is gonna call the brain police and you got priors.”

 

He repeats the phrase to himself like a mantra: _This is not Alice, this is not Alice, this is not Alice._

“Just keep telling yourself that.” Alice snaps.

 

“You have got to stop!”

 

“Fine.” She huffs, “Let me out of this trap and I’m gone.”

  
  
Quentin’s stomach does another flip.

 

“Okay, look, Alice—Evil Thing Inside of Me That Used to Be Alice—I have to say the words to open the trap. Of my own volition. Out loud. And I’m not going to do that because there is one policy for you out here, and it is to box you up for eternity.”

 

The words make him feel like he’s going to throw up.

  
  
Alice glares at him. “I’m kinda boxed up right now, in _you_.”

 

“It’s not the same thing, and you know it,” Quentin mutters under her breath as Alice walks out of his sight.

 

And their conversations continue like that, Alice insulting him and attempting to convince him to let her out, and Quentin refusing over and over and feeling sick whenever the topic of letting Alice out came up (which was a lot).

 

Time passes. The dread gets worse. Alice is starting to make him go insane.

 

But that was okay because he would never let her out, no matter how hard he tried.

 

* * *

 

 “Goddamnit, Quentin – We’re both gonna die if you keep this up, you idiot!”

 

Quentin doesn’t respond.

 

Alice snorts. “You’re so stubborn that you’d die just so I can’t leave your body.”

 

Again, he’s silent.

  
  
Alice scowls at him and gives up. It isn’t long before she starts squirming around, restless, and turns back to Quentin.

  
  
“Just let me out! I _know_ I’m driving you insane, I _know_ you’re like a day away from death, I _know_ you’re fed up with me, so just fucking let me go already!”

 

Quentin, of course, says nothing.

 

Alice growls, then screams and kicks the bar of the cell, sick and tired of being stuck in this cage for days with the most stubborn, unrelenting Quentin Coldwater she’s ever known.

 

“I fucking hate you, I hope you know that. I fucking hate you, Quentin Coldwater, and I want that to be the last thing you hear before you die because you’re such a _fucking coward_!”

 

This time, Quentin laughs.

 

Alice stares at him in bewilderment, almost offended by his laughter. “Why are you laughing?” She demands, shaking with rage. “This isn’t funny, Quentin! Shut up! SHUT UP! _SHUT UP_!”

 

Once Quentin’s laughing fit dies down, he answers, “Yes, it is. It’s fucking hilarious.”

 

Alice, infuriated, makes a sound halfway between a growl and a scream. 

 

“You’re so easy to get mad,” Quentin snickers, “It’ll be nice to watch you make yourself go crazy as I die.”

 

Alice thinks Quentin is drunk, or intoxicated on some level, because there’s _no way_ sober Quentin would pull some shit like this. She watches him laugh with disgust, arms crossed over her chest, and mutters to herself, “Yeah, drunk on _absurdity_ …”

 

Quentin’s laughter slowly shifts into coughs, blood spluttering from his mouth. Alice wants to not give a shit, but she knows he’s dying and if he dies then she dies too and _she can’t die._

“God _fucking_ DAMN IT, Quentin, you BITCH! Let me out of here already! I _can’t take it_ being trapped in here with you anymore!” Alice cries helplessly, wishing he’d been stupid enough to agree with her taking over his body.

 

“I’m counting on it.” Quentin says weakly, taking a shaky breath for the last time.

  
“No!” Alice shrieks, “No, no, no no, don’t you fucking die!”

 

But there’s nothing she can do but watch as his body went limp and she faded away, dying along with Quentin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the whole idea for this was that quentin being so stubborn that he'd rather die than box up or let alice free
> 
> so yeah that was my (shitty) take on that idea
> 
> i'd like to see someone else's take on this so let me know if you do so i can see it (and how much better it is than this fic)
> 
> please comment and lemme know if you liked this (in a positive way please and thanks) okay thank you bye


End file.
